Halloween 2012

Halloween is a big event for the Doctors.  It starts in September, when Mama and Daddy figure out when the farm is open, and how much the pumpkin cannon costs.  We go pumpkin hunting early in October, and enjoy carving our pumpkins into jack o'lanterns.  Sometimes we roast the seeds, but generally not.  For some reason, despite the fact that they're dry, crunchy and salty (all great qualities), our family just doesn't care for snacking on pumpkin seeds that much.

This year, Uncle Jason bought It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, so Mama and Carmela had a screening with some pumpkin pie.  Joy.

Then comes decorating the house with little black spiders, spider webbing, rubber rats and bats, and jack o'lanterns.  Daddy also builds a sort of seated scarecrow out of old work clothes.  He has no face; just a creepy mask.  (Mama forgot to warn the milk man last week.  Mama kind of wishes she could have seen his face as he came up the front steps.)  Uncle Jason has a fake severed leg and a fake severed arm that he likes to put out to up the scare factor.  Ela *really* didn't like them last year because they were too scary.  (She called the severed leg Little Foot, and very gravely told us many times that she did not like Little Foot.)  This year, she thought they were alright, and even tried to trick Mama into thinking she hurt herself.  Ha!

During this time, Mama and Carmela figure out what Carmela wants to be for Halloween, and then they go to the fabric store to pick out the material.  Mama enjoys this part a lot, especially because little children's costumes are very forgiving!  (Note: Ela would like the remainder of her flapper girl dress fabric made into a mermaid costume.  Mama has some Internet research to do ....)

Then comes the Halloween party.  This year, because Ela's a bit older, she got to invite quite a few neighborhood friends as well as some friends from her old preschool.  We played some silly games, ate some pizza and cupcakes, and Ela had a wonderful, screeching, jumping, balloon-bonking, beanbag-tossing, footprint-stamping, apple-chomping good time.  Whew!  We had a fabulous time, but didn't get any pictures.  One of our friends has a great camera, so when we get pictures, we'll post them to the blog.

Carmela is reintroduced to Little Foot.

"Ow, ow! Mama, I hurt my leg!"

Purple flapper girl dress and sequin flower headband.  It's some sloppy sewing, but in the dark from a distance, it looks pretty cool!

Bean bag toss game.  Daddy did a bang-up job carving out the jack o'lantern for the bean bag toss, and even lit it up with a fun yellow light on the inside!

Learning the finer points of jack o'lantern carving with Daddy. 

Very detailed work in progress.

Next up:  Trick-or-treating!  We'll post pictures on Thursday!